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Detroit Free Press sports reporter Dave Birkett takes a position-by-position look at the top prospects and biggest Detroit Lions needs in the 2020 NFL draft. This is the first in an eight-part series. Next up: Offensive line.

Lions' needs: The Lions return two-thirds of the special teams battery they’ve used since early in the 2014 season. Prater made 84% of his field goals last season, his lowest total since 2014, but he’s still got in-the-dome range and is locked into the kicking job this fall.

Muhlbach has been snapping on one-year deals for close to a decade, and the Lions have a young in-house challenger for the job in Fisher. The real battle, though, is at punter, where Fox and Wile spent time on the practice squad last season and signed futures deals in late December.

Fox impressed in an early-December workout and the Lions have high hopes for him in 2020, but that doesn’t mean they’re handing him the job. One of the top punters in last year’s draft, Fox will have to compete with Wile or whatever rookie the Lions bring to camp.

It’s an above-average year for punters; seven were invited to the combine. The Lions like Fox enough that they might not want to waste a draft pick on the position; they should be able to lure one of the top undrafted specialists to town if they need to.

Draft dish: The top kickers and punters in the draft typically start coming off the board in Round 5, and given the state of kicking games in the NFL, there should be no shortage of specialists drafted this spring.

Mann won the Ray Guy Award in 2018 and spent last year working on his directional kicking. Turk, the nephew of longtime NFL punter Matt Turk, set the punter bench-press record (25) at the combine.

Florida punter Tommy Townsend’s older brother, Johnny, punted for the Oakland Raiders in 2018. And Syracuse’s Sterling Hofrichter is one of the draft's better directional punters, which could make him a fit for the Lions.

At kicker, Bass earned himself some money with a strong Senior Bowl performance. He made a 54-yarder during the week of practice and was 2-for-2 in the game, drilling a 50-yarder late in the fourth quarter for the Matt Patricia-coached North team.

Blankenship and Mann were the first-team All-SEC kicker and punter, while UCLA’s JJ Molson is an eighth-generation descendant of Molson brewing founder John Molson.